The Turing Test - [Open Novella Contest 2019 Shortlist]

14. Seeing Red

"I don't know what he's capable of," Maven says. "More than I thought, apparently."

"Can you tell him I want to talk?" I ask.

"You're the only one who can communicate with him." A soft snort of disgust tacks itself to the end of her sentence, and I frown into the darkness.

I sigh, trying not to sound too frustrated. "Well what do I do?" I don't know how to get Darwin's attention.

"Be a machine?" Maven suggests with a bite to her voice. "I don't know. I told you to accept it. It's easier for everyone that way."

"Ronnie," Davis interrupts from behind me.

I turn around, and he bites his lip. He holds his hands out in front of him, palms out, fingers spread in a calming gesture.

"I'm not going to tell you not to do it," he says. "But please, just think about it for a second."

"I am thinking about it." I motion past Ruby, in the direction of Darwin's cell. "You're going to die. I'm not exaggerating. If you don't get hypothermia then you're going to starve. Darwin is the only one capable of escaping."

"Darwin is incapacitated."

"Physically, yes," I agree. "But he's still in there."

"And very hostile, if you were any indication earlier," Davis adds. "With the—red eyes...." He points toward my face.

I squint at him.

"I mean, your eyes, they...flickered."

I turn away, imagining what he must have seen as I swung at him. The tint that coated the world as my fist landed on Davis's face...it came from Darwin's eyes. It's what I've been seeing this whole time.

"That's it," I breathe.

"What's it?"

"I need to look him in the eyes." I speak loudly enough for Maven to hear. I realize the impossibility of the request, but its urgency brings me to the front of our cell again, straining against it until the bars dig into my front. "Please. We need Darwin."

I listen desperately to the silence, willing her to say something, to at least try. In Darwin's absence, she must be their leader. The oldest living android. They'll listen to her, and we need all of them to help if we're going to escape.

"Ada," she finally says, quiet enough that I almost don't hear. I can barely make out her profile in the dim light; she stares across the aisle, and I hear shuffling from our row of cells. Then huffing, the slight reverberation of shaking metal, and a grunt.

A woman sighs, "I can barely reach."

"Try harder," Maven suggests coldly.

The second woman's voice drops to a whisper, but it still echoes its way to us in the roomy, bare basement. "Do you really trust them?"

"I trust Darwin," Maven hisses back. "And that was him. I know him. Just do it."

I listen to the scuffle in the dimness, my eyes locking with Davis's. I resist the urge to look away and question everything. My lips still tingle where his landed, a ghost of a possibility. I want to put voice to it, but I'm afraid to ask what it meant.

We both jump as a large thump jolts the prison's thick air. "Good enough?" Ada grunts.

"It'll have to do."

I finally look away from Davis at Maven's declaration. Peering through the rows of bars, I can barely see a shadowy lump on the ground that must be Darwin. It doesn't move, but every once in a while, I see the tiniest blip of red. His chest is flush with the ground, his head turned at a right angle so that he stares blankly in our direction.